It is known that consumers can pay for entertainment content, such as pay per view television, provided by companies such as Sky Television, or the like. FIG. 1 illustrates a typical arrangement of such a pay per view system. Here, a user has a home display 20, such as a TV set, or the like, which is typically accompanied by a receiver, for receiving, decoding, and reproducing content signals for display on the home display 20. Such a receiver is commonly referred to as a “set top box”, such as set top box 14. Commonly, the set top box receives signals 14 via a satellite connection, as represented by satellite 18, transmitting signals between transmitter satellite dish 11, and the receiver satellite dish 16, installed at a user's home. Typically, the receiver satellite dish 16 will be a very small aperture terminal, as is well known in the art.
To control what content the user receives, typically the set top box will be provided with a card reader, into which a smart card is inserted which controls the decryption of encrypted subscriber content channels. The set top box 14 is further often provided with a modem, which is able to communicate via the public switched telephone network 12 back to the back end systems of the content provider 10. The content provider 10 therefore broadcasts content channels via its own satellite transmitter 11, and is also able to control the user set top boxes 14, using the connection thereto over the PSTN 12.
Thus, for example, the content provider 10 is able to send suitable enable and disable signals via the PSTN 12 to the set top box 14, so as to enable or disable the decryption of encrypted content channels, using the smart card inserted into the set top box.
Such systems are well known in the art, such as, for example, the Sky TV system, installed in many homes.
Recently there have been proposals to allow for subscription content to be forwarded from a set top box to a user's mobile device, such that the user can view the subscription content on the mobile device. One such proposal is that by the company ROK Entertainment, as was described in a press release dated 24 Mar. 2006 and published on the “Mobile Europe” website. In particular, here it is described how a home user may buy an additional box 22, which connects to the TV signal feed from the set top box 14. It also connects to the user's broadband modem (not shown). Inside the box 22 is an encoding engine 26 which encodes the TV signal into a format suitable for transmission over a mobile network. Also in the box is a streaming server 24. The streaming server 24 is connected to the user's broadband modem, such that external devices can connect to the streaming server 24, and receive the encoded content stream therefrom, via the Internet 28. It therefore becomes possible for a user to connect to his own server 24 in the box 22 via his mobile device 32, by having appropriate client software including the appropriate content decoders installed on the mobile device, and to connect via a mobile access network 30 which is capable of providing appropriate data bit rates (such as a GPRS, or 3G network). The user can then use the client software installed on the mobile device to connect via the mobile access network, which in turn has a gateway to the Internet 28, through to the server 24 in the box 22 provided at his home. The box 22 then effectively encodes and streams the output from the user's set box 14 over the Internet and via the mobile access network 30 to the user's mobile device 32, where it is reproduced.
The prior art also describes that the box 22 may send infrared signals to the set top box 14 in the home, so as to control the channel that is watched. The client software installed on the mobile device 32 is able to control a box 22 to perform this function.
However, such an arrangement has several disadvantages, both legal, and technical. In terms of the technical disadvantages the system requires that the user's broadband modem be connected to the Internet 28 at all times, such that the user of the mobile device 32 can connect to the server 24 in the box 22 through the broadband modem. However, leaving a broadband modem connected to the network can be problematic, and particularly where the modem also requires a user's PC to be left on. In particular, it can leave the PC open to potential malicious attacks, for example to try and obtain information from the PC, or to install Spyware, or the like, on the PC.
Additionally, there is also a potential legal problem with the arrangement, in that the user is usually only paying for one subscription, which typically means that the subscriber content may be reproduced on one display only, at once. However, because the set top box 14 is also able to output the subscriber content to the home display 20, as well as via the box 22 to the mobile device 32, then, although the user is only paying for one subscription, he is in fact able to watch it on two different devices. In fact, even two different users may be able to watch the same content, one on the home display, and one on the mobile device. This would typically be contrary to the terms and conditions of the user's contract with the content provider.